


Hero Talk

by xoverfiend



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 04:26:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7028464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xoverfiend/pseuds/xoverfiend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of unrelated drabbles featuring random interactions between BtVs characters and Smallville characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Close Encounters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to RevDorothyL for doing the beta thing.

_I can tell this is just going to be one of those days,_ thought Clark Kent -- super-powered alien refugee from the planet Krypton, A.K.A. the Red-Blue Blur (or more correctly, "The Blur", since he had swapped his attire to all black) -- as he looked at the young brunette woman he had pulled out of the path of a speeding car moments ago.

Clark thought nothing of it at the time: another day, another save, as it were. He had pulled her out of traffic and super-sped away. He almost instantly became aware of the pressure of the girl's hand on his wrist and, when he had looked back, he had seen her trailing out behind him. The woman, in her terror, must have grabbed onto him reflexively.

Clark knew he couldn't stop here in the middle of this crowded street, and if she let go at the speed they were moving she would probably be killed. So Clark ran up to a rooftop and stopped, holding the girl so the sudden deceleration wouldn't send her flying off the building. He was about to take off again, but she still hadn't let go of him.

"Um...excuse me, Miss...I'm going to need you to let go." Clark was silenced when the woman held up a finger to indicate that he should wait for her to catch her breath.

"Ah...ah...god...that...hah!" she gasped laboriously for a few more seconds before she looked up at Clark, at which point her breath stopped again for several seconds.

"Wow," she said. "Wasn't expecting you to be so handsome."

The compliment painted Clark's face red, and he tried to shake off his embarrassment.

"Thank you, but I really need to go, Miss..."

"Summers, Dawn Summers."

"...right. Look, Miss Summers - "

"Dawn!" she insisted.

"Dawn," Clark corrected himself, "I kind of need to get back to work, so if you'd be so kind... ?" He lifted his arm, and her own arm -- still attached to his by way of her grip -- rose with it.

"Oh, yeah...sorry about that. But I did it because I need to talk to you. If I let go of your hand, promise you won't run away?"

Clark nodded and she let go.

"So," she began, "you're it, huh? The infamous 'Red-Blue Blur'. I kind of like the new look, though...well, actually, since I have no clue what the other look _looked_ like I guess I can't talk; I just kind of said that 'cause, you know, black usually looks good on people -- it's slimming and all that, though not everyone can pull it off, but you can, of course. I mean, you look good...um, I'll shut up now."

Clark's mouth was slightly open in astonishment. That girl hadn't taken a single breath.

"Are you okay?" he asked her, hoping her super-speed trip hadn't caused any damage, possibly to her brain.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine, just a bit of a babbler." Dawn turned away from him, mortified. This mission was definitely _not_ going according to plan. She was already nervous that she was meeting THE Metropolis Blur. She had met hero types before, but this guy was practically a celebrity. The fact that he was also extremely cute did nothing to calm her nerves. Although, in retrospect, it was probably a good thing the Scoobies picked her for this mission instead of Faith as they originally intended. Almost getting run over by a car hadn't been part of the plan, but it all seemed to have worked out okay in the end.

_Okay, Dawn, focus. This is your first solo mission, All your begging and groveling to Buffy_ \-- and going behind her back to Willow, not that Dawn would ever admit to that -- _has finally paid off. Time to show them what you're made of... .Wow, he has really blue eyes. I don't think I've ever even seen a shade of blue like that - No, focus!_

"What is it you need to talk to me about, Miss Su - Dawn?"

"Oh, right. Okay, so...I'm here representing the Watchers Council. Do you know who they are?"

Clark nodded. He wasn't a big fan of the mystic community (a few bad experiences), but he didn't ignore it. Zatanna and some of his other comrades who dealt with the occult kept him apprised of the various goings on of the magical world.

"Oh, you do? Okay, good....that makes my job much easier."

"What job is that?"

"I'm here to offer you...um, how can I put this? An olive branch? No, that's not it...an alliance? No, too Middle Earth...You know what, forget it! I'm here because you're a hero, and we're heroes, and together we can probably help each other be all heroic!"

There was a pause which would have been silent if it weren't for the fact that silence doesn't exist in Metropolis.

"So, what exactly are you asking for?" Clark asked.

"In summation? Can I have your number?"

"Oh..."

"Yeah, sorry, an inappropriate sense of humor is kind of part of the whole package when dealing with Slayers and New Watchers. We just think that maybe it would be best for everyone if we knew how to get in touch...you know, just in case."

Clark stopped to consider this. The girl didn't seem to be lying, and with his enhanced senses, Clark could usually spot a lie on the other side of the continent. He himself had been something of a lone wolf most of his life, avoiding really getting into the hero business until the past two years. However, she did have a point, and Clark felt strangely honored that the Watchers Council, who Zatanna had told him had been pretty much on top of protecting the world since the dawn of humanity, were seeking him out. He would need to be careful, still; being cautious never hurt.

"Before I make any decisions, I'll need to speak to the other members of my team," Clark finally responded. He noticed Dawn's eyes widen in response. She hadn't known he had a team.

"Yeah, sure, the more the merrier...Um, so how about we meet up and discuss this, say tomorrow at eight o'clock? I hear there's a really nice Italian restaurant on the corner of 107th street and 57th avenue."

Clark's eyebrows scrunched together briefly in concentration. "That's a pizza place."

"Hey, I'm a simple girl."

Clark chuckled at her. "Okay, sounds good."

"Great...you're buying!"

Before Clark could respond, Dawn had removed a small glass vial from her pocket and thrown it on the floor where it broke and created a burst of smoke. Clark quickly cleared it with a bit of super-breath, but Dawn had gone.

_Looks like I'm about to meet some very interesting people._

_ **fin** _


	2. To be a Hero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to RevDorothyL fo helping me by doing the beta thing.

Illyria overlooked the sea of lights that was the human city of Metropolis. It did not impress her, she had traveled worlds and seen wonders none of those simpering apes could imagine. This city was nothing in the scheme of things, a pile of rubble just waiting to happen. A sudden rush of air interrupted her musings and she smirked. The smirk vanished as soon as she realized it had been involuntary. She was starting to become more in tune with her vessel, reacting reflexively in human ways. She shook the thought off; she was Illyria, the great Demon-King, her magnificence was in no way diminished by the inferior form she currently inhabited.

She could sense him behind her, but did not turn around, waiting for him to speak first.

"You called?"

She had indeed. A being who could run all over the city to stop crimes had to have good senses, she had figured. So she climbed one of the many towers in the city and had simply called out to him.

"Yes, I did."

"You're not human."

"Well, so long as we're stating the obvious, neither are you."

She turned to face him at last and was surprised by how human he looked. It was his true face, too - she could sense no magic or illusion.

"What do you want?" The Blur demanded, expecting a fight.

"Take care in the tone you use to address me, boy!" she warned. "I have not come here to fight you, but if you disrespect me again, a fight you shall have."

There was a moment's pause before he spoke again. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend." Illyria snorted, another disgustingly human reaction - she really had to watch out for those.

"You would've made a terrible demon lord, You never humble yourself before another demon."

"Demon?"

"Isn't that what you are? I figured you might not be, no demon I can think of would devote himself to protecting citizens of this filthy city. Half-demon perhaps? Or something new..."

"What I am isn't important. Who are you and what is it that you want?"

"My name is Illyria, and once I was a great ruler in this world."

"I've never heard of you."

"I would not have expected you to. As to why I'm here, whimsy."

"Whimsy?"

"Yes, I want to know why you're doing this."

The Blur's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Doing what?"

Illyria turned again to look out over the city. Her senses had deadened considerably since her power had been siphoned. In a way she was glad: she would no longer have to feel the stink of humanity pressing so close against her. But she could still remember some of it, and even now, could touch a tendril of what lay on the streets below.

"Why does a being of your power defend these insects?"

"They aren't insects, they are human beings-"

"To me it's the same thing! These creatures have no power; only a fool wastes his on the weak."

"It is for exactly that reason that I protect them."

"How nauseating."

Illyria once again turned away from the Blur, staring out at the city. She heard footsteps as he came to stand beside her, but she refused to acknowledge him.

"What about you, Illyria? What do you amount to?"

Illyria whirled on him, but he caught her fist in his own and she railed against the circumstances that had left her here in this tiny shell, depleted of her former powers.

"How dare you! I once ruled over a thousand worlds!"

"There are billions in this galaxy alone," he replied.

"I have lived for millions of your years!"

"To the sun, you are just a child throwing a tantrum."

Illyria screamed in rage and swung again, but he was gone in a gust of wind and several feet away now.

"Importance, power, size - these things are all relative, Illyria. How hard have you had to fight?" he asked.

Illyria paused, unsure of what he meant, indignation fueling a desire not to answer him, simply to be impudent. Not at all unlike the child he had accused her of being moments ago. Illyria released her anger, telling herself she was quite above it.

"I have never had to fight, so great was my power that all things that opposed me fell with ease!"

"Then what could you possibly know of these people?" The Blur had walked back to the edge of the building's roof and gazed upon the city, an invisible gesture for her to do the same.

"All those people do out there is struggle. You claim that they are insignificant, that they have no power. Yet even though they are so weak, they struggle with everything they have. Their lives are a constant battle, and look at all they have accomplished. All that power you were given, what did you use it for, Illyria?"

"I used it as I willed. That is the right of the strong."

"Then you have no claim to superiority. All that power, did you ever use any of it to push limits? Did you ever use it for the betterment of yourself, of your kind? These people, these humans, these ants...they have earned all the power they have. I say that they are the superior ones. They are trying all the time to better themselves, to reach higher. Did your kind ever do that, Illyria? That is why I protect them. They will be magnificent, one day."

Illyria said nothing; she had nothing to say. The silence began to stretch, and soon the Blur began to move away again.

"Walk among them, Illyria. Watch them, and I have no doubt that soon you will be able to see what I see in them." And in a gust of wind, he was gone.

Illyria stood on that roof for a long moment more.

"Hmph, I couldn't care less." she said as she departed. She wandered the dark alley of the city, heading back to where the human flying machine was located. They were not given the ability to fly, she reflected. They achieved it themselves.

She heard then a scream of fear, and before she could think about what she was doing she was running, soon finding herself in an alley where a man stood over a woman on the ground, brandishing a knife. The man turned to face Illyria and pointed the knife at her.

"Run away, girlie, and you won't get hurt."

The dull impact of the man's body colliding with a wall was barely audible over all the sirens and other ambient sounds of the city.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you...," the woman cried before running off. Illyria stood in that alley, looking down its dark path, seeing the illumination of the street lamps at its end.

"Very well," she spoke, knowing that The Blur could hear her, but not intending the statement for him. "I'm curious."

FIN


	3. Friend in need

_The Request_

Clark stepped into the main control center, unofficially dubbed "Watchtower", of the Slayer headquarters in Scotland. He was surrounded by glowing screens and blinking consoles someone pulled right out of a science fiction television set. The cast of super powered, monster hunting women who would usually be operating the consoles was nowhere to be found. Only one man stood, monitoring the data from all over the world with cyclopean vigilance.

"Sergeant Fury," Clark greeted.

The man turned around and met Clark's eyes with his own remaining one and grinned.

"Clark, have some self-respect. Nick Fury was a colonel when he was in charge of SHIELD," said Alexander Harris, aka "Xander" Harris, aka "One-Eyed Willie", aka "No More Fun and Games" Xander, aka "Sergeant/Colonel Nick Fury".

"So, Xander," Clark continued, "why did you call me here?"

"Well," Xander began, clapping his hands together once in front of himself. Clark was instantly apprehensive. He knew Xander well, well enough to know the combination of that one-off clap, the slightly higher pitch of his voice, and the "well" that hung in the air, dangling between them like a swinging corpse could only mean that Xander had a request. A request he was certain the other party would not like.

Xander had not yet continued, and Clark could see the gears turning in his head. Literally see, the millisecond electrochemical bursts of each synapse creating a tiny arc of heat, a subtle, insignificant change in the temperature compared to the cells around it that translated up onto the surface of the skin where it resolved itself into a crack of brightness, combining with others to weave a jagged web of light on Xander's skin. To Clark's alien eyes, such a thing was as clear as the humming lattice of the castle's wi-fi that spun and zigzagged around them all like cloud to cloud lighting.

Clark supposed Xander had forgotten to take into account how quickly Clark would respond to the call, otherwise he would have prepared his sales pitch before even picking up the phone.

"Well," Xander repeated, "you see…Clark…the thing of it is. I need your help with something."

Clark made a point of slowly looking at all the empty workstations.

"Clearly it's not a demon problem."

"No, not a demony problem…but, uh…it does require some things that only you can do. It's actually more about something you have…"

"Ah," Clark nodded. It was a technological problem. Clark Kent, heir to the lost race of Krypton (though Clark was sure calling them 'lost' was unfair, since all the evil ones seem to have survived and kept popping up, as well as his cousin), had access to a vast trove of technology millennia beyond anything humans had. He kept it all in his own headquarters, a Fortress of Solitude in the arctic.

"I won't lie to you, Xander," Clark said, "I don't know if I can help. The machines in the fortress are crazy complex, and I'm still learning how to operate most of them. Even in the golden age of Krypton, an average student could expect to spend a hundred years to get all the degrees you would need to be certified as a technician for a station like the Fortress."

"Trust me, Clark, if I thought I had any other option, I would do that. Earth technology is not up to the task, and I don't want to risk magic for this, too many things can go wrong."

Clark sighed and nodded, crossing his arms. Whatever it was, it must be something grave.

"Okay, what do you need?"

Xander licked dry lips.

"Well, Clark, you see, I have a sort of…I have a date coming up-"

"With Renee?" Clark asked, knowing full well the answer.

"What? You were off the planet until last week, how did you already hear about that?"

"Anyone with eyes, Xander…anyone with eyes."

Xander coughed into his fist.

"Well that explains why I didn't see it. Anyway, yes, I do have a date, with Renee. It's my first date in a very long time, like nearly two years…"

Clark waited, but Xander fell silent.

"Okay, and…" Clark coaxed.

"It's just…it's been such a long time. I don't know exactly what's going to happen…but if something does happen at some point down the line…I'm just worried that I might get… too _enthusiastic._ "

Clark was dead still, his face a mask of total neutrality. Xander knew that was Clark's version of a murderous glare and gulped.

"Okay, and…"

"Well, I was just wondering if you happened to have anything that could, um, help with that. You know, since Kryptonians were masters of biology, and chemistry, and…just like all of the science…so, I was hoping maybe…there'd be like a thing…"

Clark stepped closer, arms no longer crossed, running a hand through his hair.

"So, Mr. Harris," Clark said, "just so that we're totally clear…"

Xander wondered if Clark could use his freezing breath while speaking.

"…you want me to use the technology of my destroyed home world, to access the legacy of my people, a people who mastered the forces of the cosmos, who traveled the stars of distant universes, and who understood the math of life and death in its complexity, you want me to use this treasure trove of knowledge and wisdom so that you can… _enhance_ yourself…sexually. Is that correct?"

Xander licked his lips again, they seemed to have forgotten how to stay moist themselves. Clark was just inches away.

"So…" Xander stammered, "is that a no?"

Clark said nothing, he simply pivoted around and stalked out of the room.

A few weeks later, Clark was in his apartment, making breakfast when a knock came at the door. He had heard her come up the stairs, recognized the sound of her heartbeat, the rhythm of her breath, and her voice when she spoke to the doorman outside. He walked over and undid the locks of the door, swinging it open to reveal a tiny blonde woman.

Clark's face twisted in a grimace of smug distaste.

"Hello, _Buffy,"_ he said in his best baleful Jerry Seinfeld. She gave him a smug stare of her own.

" _Hello_ , Clark _,"_ she said in her best faux-jovial Wayne Knight impression.

Clark gave her a genuine smile and stepped aside so that she could enter.

"Everything okay?"

Buffy nodded.

"Me and some girls need to get to Japan, we got a layover in Metropolis. I was actually kinda wondering if you could put us up for the night, we're trying to cut down on hotel fees."

Clark nodded.

"Of course, I've got extra sheets and pillows too, in case something like this happened."

"Hm, talk about 'crazy prepared'. By the way," Buffy reached into her pocket and pulled out a white envelope. "This is for you."

Clark raised an inquisitive eyebrow and took the envelope, sliding it open with a thumb.

"It's a thank you card?"

"Huh," Buffy said, "Renee asked me to bring that to you. What's she thanking you for?"

Clark flinched and grimaced.

"That's distasteful…" he muttered to himself, silently apologizing to his Kryptonian ancestors.

* * *

_Blame it on the A-A-A-Alcohol_

"Well, good thing we got all that cleared up," Xander said "and no one got hurt."

"Xander, there is a building on fire, three boys turned into Neanderthals are trapped inside a van, and Buffy might have given that Parker lad a concussion when she knocked him out."

"No one important got hurt," Xander amended as they all walked down the street, the inferno behind them lighting up the cool night.

Willow raised her hand.

"Um, hello, also knocked out."

Xander sighed and looked at Buffy, her hair matted and disheveled.

"Fine, but it could have been worse, Slayer turned into a cave person and no one's dead."

"True," Giles added, "Buffy's reversion to a primal form and mentality could have had a very high casualty risk."

Xander suddenly stopped.

"Oh god," everyone turned to stare at him, except Buffy, who kept looking around in jerky motions.

"What is it now?" Giles asked, tired and sore and not at all ready for more impending evil.

"I can't believe I forgot, Clark, he was at the bar."

Giles frowned.

"Really? I didn't take Clark for the drinking sort."

"I asked him to come," Xander said, "since it was my first day bartending, he came to show support."

"Oh god," Willow said, hands waving franticly, "did he drink the beer?"

Xander gulped, "Well…I mean it's not like he can get drunk! He had a few 'cause he liked the taste but then he stuck around to help me keep an eye on Buffy and make sure those guys didn't try anything. He drank almost as much as they did."

Giles cursed and started jogging, Willow and Xander shared a look before jogging after him, Buffy racing by their side.

"Damn it, Xander!" Giles exclaimed between puffs of breath. "That enchanted beer turned everyone who drank it into a primitive state and you're just now remembering that you gave it to the most powerful creature we know?"

"I'm sorry, there was just a bunch going on!"

"How long did you say the effect would last?" Willow asked.

"About a day or so," Xander called back.

"In that amount of time, Clark could level the whole town," Giles wheezed, regretting for the billionth time all the cigarettes he'd smoked when he was younger.

"Hey," Willow gasped, "what are we even going to do when we get there? Caveman Clark has got to be like, the Incredible Hulk or something, right? We don't have any way to restrain him."

"Don't forget-ah…cramp-he can shoot fire, he's really more like the Red Hulk."

Giles couldn't spare Xander a withering glance at that moment, so he filed one away to be paid later.

"We'll just have to do our best to keep him calm."

They ran all the way to Clark's dorm and arrived, wheezing, gasping, and coughing, all save Buffy, who seemed to think they were all playing around. Giles tried the door and found it unlocked. He turned to look at the others and very slowly worked the knob, pushing the door open as silently as possible.

Clark Kent was sitting at a small bedside work desk, hunched over several sheets of paper. When the door opened he swiveled around in his chair, brightening as he saw them.

"Oh, thank god you guys are here. I've been calling but I couldn't get in touch."

Giles, Willow, and Xander all stared at him, then at each other. Buffy grunted and stood on her toes to try and get a better look at the room everyone was staring into.

"Yeah," Xander started, "we've been having a bit of a thing."

"Is everyone okay?" Clark asked, frowning.

"Yes, Well," Giles said, "we're working that out. Why have you been trying to contact us, Clark?"

Clark napped his fingers in recollection.

"Yes, right, something _terrible_ has happened!" Clark took the papers on his desk and quickly stacked them together, and handed them to Willow.

With Giles and Xander leaning over her on either side, Willow looked over a mind boggling array of symbols, diagrams, and equations.

"Good lord," Giles said.

"Clark…" Willow began, blinking the swimming glyphs from her eyes, "I think you're inventing a new type of math."

Clark started pacing around his room as he recounted his harrowing tale.

"Last night while I was showering I had some ideas about quantum mechanics that I wanted to test out. So I started working and everything was going fine, but suddenly around morning…something happened. My mind became sluggish, the numbers stopped making sense. I had to stop and slowly work through each individual equation using a _calculator_ of all things. I thought I might just be tired so I went to sleep…for _five whole hours!_ "

He gave them a pointed look of astonishment as he continued pacing.

"But when I woke up, still nothing. The connections were all still _so slow_. After I couldn't get a hold of you guys started doing some tests. I can only remember Pi to the _seventy-thousandth digit!_ And it took me _three whole hours to recite!_ "

Clark stopped pacing and turned to face them all again, face stricken with panic.

Everyone was silent. Giles took off his glasses and began wiping them with a handkerchief from his coat pocket. Willow just sighed and slouched her shoulders. Xander raised his hand.

"So…what's happening?"

Buffy wormed her way through the door and stalked forward, closing in on Clark like a panther. Something like a survival instinct must have gone off in Clark's brain because he backed up as she advanced.

"Um, Buffy?"

Buffy cornered him and as he kept backing up, he tripped into his bed. Buffy drew closer until they were just inches apart, she brought her face in close to his and sniffed him.

"Clark smell nice," she grunted, "Clark's face pretty."

Clark frowned as he looked at her, taking in her low cadence, her hunched shoulders, and the prominent brow ridge.

"What's happened? Her speech, her behavior," he reached a hand up slowly and brushed it against the corner of Buffy's temple, "even her morphology has changed. Has she somehow been reverted to a more primitive form of humanity?"

Buffy nuzzled his hand and Clark jerked it back like he had been shocked.

"All her sexual mores seem to be gone as well." He said, putting his hands on her shoulders and gently pushing her off of him.

Willow and Giles just looked at Xander.

"The beer," they said in unison.

"Wait, what do you mean the beer?" Xander asked, "It didn't work on Clark, he's not acting like a cave…oh."

Realization blossomed on Xander's face.

"Well," Willow said, smiling wryly, "it's nice to know that Clark is to us as we are to _Neanderthals…_ I'm sure this won't feed into my insecurities at all."

Xander shrugged.

"Hey, I'm used to it."

Giles finished cleaning his glasses and put them back on his face.

"It is rather freeing. This must be how you feel all the time, Xander."

"Hey!"

"At least I no longer have to worry about Clark trying to take over the world one day. That would be like a human taking over an island of chimpanzees. No point at all."

Clark frowned,

"I'm sure I'll be offended by that comment later, Mr. Giles, but right now I gotta ask…what's up with the beer?"


	4. The B-Team Part 1

A demon tore through the streets of the small California town of Sunnydale. This unholy crimson beast, given the dread name "E30 325ic" by its creators, the sorcerers and alchemist craftsmen of the ancient cabal known as Bayerische Motoren Werke, shot through the town's sleepy street at sixty miles an hour. Deep in the creature's leather upholstered belly, three victims sat.

One was Tara Maclay, though she preferred not to acknowledge her family name whenever possible. The blonde college student was gay, a witch, and more importantly at the moment, hanging on for dear life. She had always had a problem making herself heard, so she struggled to raise her voice over the howling of wind that blew in her face.

"Maybe you should slow down!"

"Or at least put the top up!"

That shrill exclamation came from Dawn Summers, the willowy brunette in the back seat, a high school student, a mystical Key to dimensional portals, and also holding on for dear life.

Their comments were directed at the lunatic who had whipped the dreaded red beast into its current frenzy; The (currently) red-haired Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins (conjure by it at your own risk), aka "Anyanka", aka "The Flayer", aka "Bane of the Unfaithful", aka "Seas of Blood Anyanka", aka "The Unnecessarily Intricate Mutilator", aka "D'Hoffryn's Pet", aka "Macaroni Art but with Intestine's Anyanka", aka "The B #$% who is called Dragon", aka…

All four of the beast's occupants flew forward as the creature, with a hideous screech and a burst of acrid smoke, suddenly decelerated into a sharp turn.

"I said we needed to get there _as soon as possible_ ," Anya said, ignoring Dawn completely. She was fairly certain even Giles had no idea how to put the top up.

"Right," Tara yelled, "but that kinda presupposes not being dead or in jail."

"Well, next time maybe don't attach your quest for validation to my quest for exclusive discount inventory."

Tara felt a twinge of annoyance, but she reminded herself that Anya still had trouble knowing when she was being rude. Or when she was being just plain wrong, because this was definitely not a quest for validation…definitely not.

The fourth passenger was another high school student, the only boy of the four, Clark Kent the alien. Not that you could tell by looking at him. In appearance at least, he was fully human.

They were in the residences near the edge of town, and they shot past a house with an old man in a rocking chair, reading a local newspaper. As they passed, Clark read the front page article of the paper. It was about a recent drop in gang violence, and the rather self-congratulatory tone of a recent speech by Sunnydale's mayor outlining how her policies were responsible for this drop in crime.

Clark snorted, gang violence huh? There were Egyptian crocodiles less in denial.

"The police might be willing to ignore all the supernatural murder in Sunnydale," Clark said, turning to face Anya, "but they won't pass up a chance to fill their ticket quota."

Anya sighed.

"Fine, since you're _all_ gonna gang up on me…"

The monster slowed down to a more reasonable forty-nine miles per hour and chased with fifty as they took a little used road out of town, chatting about random things.

"This is nice," Dawn said, "us doing stuff together, ya know? The 'outsiders' or whatever…'the B team'."

"Speak for yourself," Anya said, " _I'm_ not an outsider. _I_ contribute. I run the shop!"

"We all contribute," Tara was quick to say when she saw Dawn gathering steam for an argument. "But it's hard for all of us to squeeze into the bond the 'core four' have."

"We're all part of the UN," Clark said, "but Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles are the Security Council."

"The United Nations," Anya snorted, "feels like yesterday everyone was all excited about their 'League of Nations' and look what happened. They took it out of the box, played with it a bit, and when they broke it they just got a new one instead of trying to fix it."

They started trying to decide which gang member was which nation.

It was early evening when Anya pulled in front of a large, wrought iron gate set into a tall brick wall that disappeared to either side. Tara got out of the car and walked up to a button by the side of the gate. Pressing it, she spoke into a speaker.

"Hello, Mr. Castellanos. It's me, Tara."

She released the button but was greeted with a long silence. She pushed the button again.

"Tara Maclay…we spoke yesterday on the phone."

Still nothing.

"So…I don't have time to wait around here," Anya called from the car. "The alignment that opens the portal to the Haplar dimension is gonna happen in a few hours, and if I'm not in the right spot I won't be able to meet my guy and I'll lose my chance at an Amulet of Mithra, which I feel I must remind you, I could sell for a _lot_ of money."

"Wait, just…" Tara bit her lip and tried the intercom again. Still no response.

"Maybe he forgot about your appointment?" Dawn suggested, shrugging.

"C'mon," Anya said, "let's go. You can call him back and try another day."

"But…" but by then, Willow would probably be back, and Tara wouldn't have been able to do anything useful in her absence. Tara stared past the bars of the gate at the driveway that went into the horizon and disappeared over a hill, willing someone, anyone to appear.

"Uh…go ahead," Tara said. "I'll stay here…you know; i-in case he comes back."

Damn, she really thought she had finally fixed that stutter once and for all.

"Tara, I won't be able to come and pick you up again until late at night."

"It's fine, I'll be okay. You should go ahead."

Tara gave what she thought was a reasonable approximation of a disarming smile. Anya actually hesitated, which was more than she would have done just a few years ago.

"Well, if you're sure…"

Clark sighed. Tara may have qualified as a Pictionary clue for "soft-spoken", but she had an iron resolve to match the best of the best.

"I'll stay too," Clark said, opening his door and getting out of the car.

"Oh, that's okay, really, you don't have to," Tara scrambled all over herself to convince Clark that she would be fine. Clark didn't doubt it, but misery, or extreme boredom in this case, was always weathered best in company.

"Yeah, I'll stay too," Dawn said. She hopped out of the car and stretched her stiff legs. Tara smiled at the two youngest members of the Scooby Gang in secret gratitude.

Anya shrugged, "Okay whatever. Suit yourselves."

With that she put the car into reverse, pulled off an increasingly impressive three-point turn, and sped off. So her manners were far from perfect, there was definite improvement.

"Sorry," Clark said to Dawn. She turned to him with a questioning expression on her face.

"How do you mean?"

"For making you wait around with us."

"Pfft, oh please. Ego much? I'm not here following you around _Clark._ "

"Well I know _that_ , but I also knew that you would rather lay in a bathtub of leeches than spend a whole day with Anya."

Dawn gave him a withering glare.

"…how big is the bathtub?"

Clark grinned at her and she stuck her tongue out and huffed, moving to stand next to Tara.

"I just hope this guy gets here soon," Dawn grumbled.

Tara patted Dawn's shoulder.

"I'm sure he'll be here any minute now."

An hour later, Dawn was groaning into the sky.

"Oh! My! God! It is too hot out for this crap! Stupid sun with it's stupid rays. Why do we have to be out here doing this? This kind of thing should be Buffy's job."

She stared up into the cloudless sky from where she lay on her back on the recently manicured lawn that flanked the driveway, one hand up to cast a protective shadow over her eyes.

"You're the one who's always asking Buffy to let you have more responsibilities," Clark said from where he sat not three feet from her.

"Clark, stop injecting sense into my rants, it's considered rude on Earth."

"I'm sorry," Tara said quietly from Dawn's other side. "If it weren't for me, you guys wouldn't have to be here."

Which was unfair and made Dawn knot in guilt.

"No, it's fine," Dawn sighed, "I just like to complain. I still don't see why Buffy and the others had to go all the way to _England_ to get the skinny on this latest possible apocalypse from the Watcher's Council. I mean, they came over here for the Glory thing."

"It's a power play," Clark said.

Dawn and Tara both frowned and turned to look at him.

"What do you mean?" Dawn asked, voice tinged with concern.

Clark took a breath before he started explaining.

"Well, it's exactly _because_ of what happened during the Glory thing. Your sister kinda handed the Council its own behind during their last meeting. This time around, Mr. Travers is trying to regain his prestige. By forcing the Slayer to come to him for the information, he's trying to show her dependence on him, trying to show that he can control her."

"Ugh," Dawn grunted in disgust, propping herself up on her elbows. "That is so skeazy. That Travers guy is such a creep. I mean, the world might be ending, _again,_ and he wants to measure junk. I thought the Council's _job_ was to help save the world!"

"It probably still is on some level, but this is something that just seems to happen to organizations. They stick around long enough, get powerful enough, and their purpose seems to shift more and more from whatever their founding intent was, to perpetuating their own existence. The fall of pretty much every empire is that they wind up buying the myth of their own superiority so deeply that they make bad decisions. Travers may essentially be fighting with Buffy over who gets to hold the hose while the house burns down, but to be fair to him-"

"I'd rather you didn't."

"-to be fair to him, I think he honestly believes that he knows best where to point the hose…and he's also probably sick of getting constantly shown up by a bunch of kids."

Dawn looked back up to the sky and blew a long raspberry.

_That_ for Quentin Travers.

"So is there _anything_ you don't know about?" Dawn asked Clark.

"Modern Dance."

Dawn looked over to Clark to see if he was joking, but he had a great poker face when he put his mind to it.

"Now I'm actually kind of worried," Tara said. "If they all went over there and Travers has some crafty scheme…"

"Don't be, I've got more craft than Quentin Travers in that dumb piece of macaroni art on the fridge door" Dawn said, "no way Buffy lets that…that…that _smarmy old git_ get away with his mind gamery."

Wow, _way_ too much time with Spike.

"Yeah, maybe." Clark said. Personally, Clark thought that, whatever the Watcher's Council might be about, Buffy was still all about saving the world. She would probably let Travers preen a bit if it meant getting information that could avert the potential apocalypse. Still…

"Mr. Giles has been part of the Watchers for most of his life," Clark said. "He may not like to think about it too much, but he probably knows a thing or two about how to maneuver over there. And if it does come down to a show of force…well, they did bring Willow."

Clark turned to face Tara and gave her a comforting smile. She returned a grateful one of her own.

"No one's more qualified to make a show of force than Willow," Dawn said, a grin stretching across her face almost as wide as her malice. "Except maybe you, Clark."

Clark snorted.

"Yeah, pass…I'd like to put off on the Watcher's finding out about my existence for as long as possible."

"Bunch of dicks," Dawn said. She cupped her hands around her mouth.

" _Diiiiiiiiiiiiccckksssssssssss!"_ She yelled, bursting into a fit of giggles. She turned to see Clark and Tara staring at her blankly.

"What? It's a funny word. All of them are, actually."

"Well…" Clark said, "it's a funny appendage."

Both Tara and Dawn started laughing, and from there the humor climbed down a few rungs on the ladder of proper decorum, and Clark Kent learned that Dawn Summers and Tara Maclay were both scandalous perverts.

It was right around the time they started naming "movies whose titles would be exactly the same for the porn parody" ( _All the King's Men, An American in Paris, The Dirty Dozen, Goldfinger, Twelve Angry Men [_ "Jesus Christ, Dawn!" _] Dr. Strangelove, The King and I, Jaws_ ) that Clark decided that that was, in fact, quite enough of that.

" _Okay!"_ He said, springing to his feet. "Sun is going to be setting soon, and we don't have food or water or anything, so we need to get into this guy's house."

"Thank God," Dawn said also getting to her feet. They both looked at Tara.

"Um, I _was_ gonna disagree until you mentioned the whole 'food and water' thing. I guess I kinda didn't think the whole 'sit here and wait for an unknown amount of time' thing all the way through."

"Great," Dawn said, "and really, kinda this guy's fault. Who makes an appointment for _the next day_ and then doesn't show? So, Clark, do your thing. Bust the gate!"

Clark gave her an even stare.

"I mean I _could_ do that, or you could get on my back."

"What? Don't you mean get _off_ your ba-…oh."

As soon as she realized his intention, Dawn practically leapt onto Clark's back, hooking her arms around his throat and her legs around his waist.

"Hey, are you sure about that?" Tara asked, face turning a little green.

"I don't see any radio waves, so there aren't any active cameras," Clark responded, and I don't hear anyone nearby, so we should be good if it's just to get over the gate."

He wrapped his own arms securely around Dawn's legs and said,

"Hold on tight."

With one powerful push they were in the air, climbing twenty feet and just making it over the gate. As they started to fall on the other side, Clark reached out and grabbed onto the bars of the gate, gripping them tightly enough to slow their descent so that they reached the ground with almost no impact.

Dawn let go of Clark and staggered back onto the ground, gasping in exhilaration. Clark was back over the gate with one flip, landing hard without using the gate to slow himself, but he was unhurt. Perks of alien-ness.

Tara very slowly and awkwardly climbed her way onto Clark's back.

"Um…maybe this is a bad idea."

"Don't worry, it'll be fine" Clark said in gentle, soothing tones.

"Okay, well just give me a second to get read- _oh my goddddddd!"_

They landed on the other side the same way without incident, but Tara collapsed onto the ground.

"Oh god," she was wheezing, "I think I peed. Did I pee? Is this pee?"

"Relax," Clark said, "you're fine, you didn't pee, that's just a reaction your body has to falling.

"I hate roller coasters," Tara gasped.

"Sorry, but waiting would have just led to you psyching yourself out."

"If Willow and I ever have to move, you're hauling all our crap."

Clark smiled.

"That was probably gonna happen anyway. Saw the guy's house when we were in the air too, it's gonna be another twenty or thirty-minute walk."

Dawn groaned, and when Tara had recovered, they followed the driveway and made their way to the house.

"House, huh?" Dawn said as they approached the building. "I think the words you were looking for, Clark, were 'sprawling manor', or 'vast estate'…'big ol' god-damn mansion' would have also been acceptable…is that a tower? _Rich people…_ "

"What did you say this Mr. Castellanos did again?" Clark asked Tara.

"Um, I don't actually know. Some of the forums I'm on say he's a big collector of occult lore, and he might know something about this next apoc', but I never did ask him what he did for a living when I spoke to him."

Clark frowned.

"Something up?" Tara asked.

"This building is huge, and the grounds even more so. But I don't hear anyone. No staff, no groundskeepers, no one…"

When they reached the intricately engraved, heavy oak double doors, the sun was starting to set. Tara reached out a hand toward the doorbell, also set in a rather intricately engraved bronze panel. Clark's hand suddenly found her outstretched wrist.

Tara turned to look at him, the unspoken question on her face. She saw him staring up at the building with a focused look that she knew gave new meaning to the phrase "penetrating gaze".

"What's up?" Dawn asked.

"Well, I think this building may have been built before all the proscriptions against lead paint and piping, because I can't really _see_ anything, but…" he turned to them and grimaced, "I can smell _blood_."


	5. The B-Team Part 2

"Damn, summer break seriously messes with my internal calendar. I totally forgot that it was Tuesday." Dawn said as she and Tara stood in the doorway of a spacious study. Dawn thought it looked like something out of a British period drama.

The single room was probably bigger than her whole house back in Sunnydale, floor space wise. The walls were covered in tall wooden bookcases stacked with tomes. Not books, books were for pedestrian libraries, these were _tomes_. The carpet was so fine that Dawn felt self-conscious about stepping on it, doubting she could afford the cleaning bill. In even rows across the room were glass-cased pedestals displaying impressively ancient-looking scrolls. Toward the very back of the room was a large wooden desk and leather armchair.

In the armchair sat a corpse.

As she stared at the massive chest wound in the dead old man's body, Dawn marveled at how used to viscera a girl could get when her sister was a Slayer. Dawn and Tara stood looking into the room from afar to avoid "contaminating the crime scene" as Dawn called it, while Clark, who didn't have to worry about leaving things like fingerprints, examined the body.

"How's it going over there, _Encyclopedia Brown_?"

Clark looked up from where he knelt by the body, stretching his arms forward and framing Dawn and Tara with his fingers like an imaginary camera lens.

"I was always more into Cam Jansen," he said, " _click._ "

He got up and made his way across the floor to them.

"I may have better senses than a human, but even I'm no match for a proper crime lab. Cause of death appears to be the huge gaping hole where his heart should be."

Dawn rolled her eyes.

"Thank you, CSI Smallville-"

"Based on the wound itself," Clark continued, ignoring her, "and the corresponding hole in the chair, it looks like someone or something reached through the back of the chair, into his back, out through his chest, then pulled back out, presumably with the man's heart in its grasp. This was all done in one quick motion, so we're talking serious strength here. He doesn't appear to have been dead for much longer than maybe eighteen hours or so."

Dawn's nose wrinkled in disgust.

"Jeez, what could punch a hole right through a man's chair _and_ chest like that? Other than you, of course, Clark."

"Quite a few things, unfortunately. Still not the strangest bit. Whatever did the mauling, it either did a phenomenal job of covering its own tracks or it simply appeared behind the man, did the deed, and then disappeared into thin air."

"A super strong thing that also teleports…super-duper."

Clark looked at Tara, who was staring past him at the body. He gently touched her on the shoulder and she flinched away, eyes wild and unfocused.

"Tara, are you okay."

She blinked at him through a haze of thoughts.

"Um…" she shook her head and drew a long, steadying breath. "Yeah, sorry…being able to see auras 'n stuff is normally super nifty…but not for things like this."

"Let's go downstairs," Dawn suggested. Clark and Tara nodded, and Clark closed the door behind him.

"So I'm guessing that was Mr. Castellanos," Clark said.

"Probably," Tara agreed, "though I never did see him."

The trio started down the four flights of stairs that lead to the base of the tower in which the study was located.

"Gah," Dawn complained, "if you're gonna waste money building a frickin' tower like some evil D&D Necromancer, at least spring for an elevator."

"The building does have a few rather anachronistic stylings."

"Yeah, like lead paint on the walls…" Dawn turned to Clark behind her on the staircase, looking up at him over her shoulder. "Hey are we in danger? Like, can we be getting poisoning?"

Clark shook his head.

"It's not lead paint, I tested it."

"Really? How?"

"Obviously, Dawn, I went around and licked all the walls."

Dawn laughed until she saw his completely straight face.

"Wait…that was a joke right?"

"So if it isn't lead blocking my vision," Clark continued, "it's probably-"

"Magic," Tara interjected.

Clark nodded.

"I've been feeling it ever since we stepped into the house," Tara explained, "the air's charged with it, like static. There's probably some kind of privacy spell to protect from prying eyes-"

"-more like _scrying eyes_ ," Dawn joked.

Tara smiled at her.

"Yeah, whatever it is, it's probably blocking your x-ray vision."

"Well," Clark said as they reached the ground floor, "that changes things. This guy was more than a collector of occult lore; he was a practitioner. And something killed him here in his own house."

"You think we should bail," Tara said.

"What?" Dawn wheeled on Clark. "No way, we can't go now!"

"Dawn, whatever killed him could still be around."

"You don't _know_ that. Besides, we're gonna have to investigate this guy's death eventually. If we wait, the trail might go cold."

"True," Clark admitted, frowning. "But with Buffy and Co. in England, we have no backup, aside from Anya."

"We'll be fine," Dawn insisted. "If we can't handle a little, bitty, heart-punchy teleport demon or whatever without her help, Buffy is never gonna trust me-I mean us to do anything other than read a bunch of musty old books in musty old Giles' musty old house."

Clark turned to Tara for support but saw her in deep deliberation.

"There's still an apocalypse on," she said, half pleading with him, "and the info we need might still be here."

Clark crossed his arms and stared at the plush shag of the jade carpet. There was a slight shift in the ambient light.

"The sun's set," Clark said softly.

"If there _is_ some crazy demon running around the grounds," Dawn said, "we're just as in danger out there as we are in here…maybe more."

Clark sighed before letting the resolve bleed out of his stance.

"Anya will be back to pick us up in a few hours. I'll go along with this _crazy_ scheme if we can all agree to leave then."

They both agreed, and Clark dragged himself back up to the study and moved the body so the two women could get to work.

Tara fished a jar of brightly colored and deeply enchanted sand from her faded leather satchel, pouring it in a thin line in front of the doorway as she said a spell that would hopefully stop anything evil from getting into the room while they were working, or at least slow it down.

Dawn stared at the walls and walls of heavy texts and sighed.

"I guess it'd be too much to ask for the information we need to be listed under 'A for Apocalypse'."

She ruled out the books that Giles also had copies of, pulled out a contender at random, a heavy thing bound in what appeared to be an obsidian book cover, of all things, covered in etchings of skeletons. Seemed like as good a place as any to start. She opened to the first page.

"Aaaand it's in some kind of Demotic…"

Hieratic derivatives were one of her weakest language groups. Dawn brushed aside her despondency, sat on the plush carpet (the only chair was the murder chair, so no thank you) and got to work.

Clark, for his part, was certain something was inevitably going to go wrong, so he set about working on their escape plan. Always have an escape plan was the first rule.

" _Actually,"_ the echo of Dawn Summer's voice resounded in his memory, _"the first rule is 'don't talk about bite club'."_

" _Fine,"_ Clark had said, _"then the second rule is 'always have an escape plan'."_

" _Nope!"_ She had chimed, _"second rule is_ _ **'don't talk about bite club'**_ _."_

Walked right into that one.

As Clark searched for the garage, he noted that the owner's artistic style leaned heavily toward the baroque, which made the Monet odd. He found it hanging above a fireplace in a spacious sitting room that smelled like wood smoke and scotch, one of the Haystacks series.

_Could be nothing,_ Clark thought, but he doubted it. He took the painting off the red brick of the flute and examined the space behind it. His X-ray vision may have been blocked, but his visual acuity was still second to none. He spotted a brick that was unlike the others, disconnected as if it could be, and often was, removed.

It was just high enough for the late Mr. Castellanos to reach without much difficulty. Clark's hand was halfway there before he caught himself.

_Oops, secure an escape route first_ (definitely one of the top ten rules, exact place to be decided), _then go around touching strange things in the_ _ **obviously**_ _haunted house._

Clark did eventually find the garage, though the more appropriate term was probably 'hangar'.

" _Rich people,"_ Clark sighed. Clark located the keys, hanging on a rack like grapes on a vine, picked one at random, found its companion car, and got inside.

He turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. He tried again. Still nothing.

He got out and started a thorough inspection of the car. Everything seemed fine. Yet, no luck. Clark tried another car, then another. Nothing worked, and there was no reason they shouldn't work.

_Hmm,_ Clark thought, and on a hunch he vanished from the garage in a rush of air and shot across the grounds like a bullet. He ran and ran, but he never seemed to get any closer to the walls that marked the border of the grounds.

_Great…_

Back in the study, Dawn and Tara were making their way through book after book, looking for any reference to the rise of the demon lord, Taraka the Terrible.

Also, why did no one writing ancient tomes of arcane diablerie ever think to include a table of contents or at least an index?

"Oh my god," Dawn suddenly cried out. Tara's head shot up from a scroll that she was growing to suspect was actually a cookbook.

"What is it, Dawnie? Did you find something?"

"Yeah, an elaborate illustration of Ghorback mating rites. That, or a Salvador Dali painting, I can't quite tell."

Tara's nose crinkled.

There was a distinctive rush of air and both girls turned toward the door where Clark had stopped right in front of the line of sand. He carefully stepped over it and entered the room, face grim.

"Well," he said, "we're trapped here."

"What do you mean," Dawn asked, eyes wide.

"Whatever killed Mr. Castellanos is definitely still here, and it's trapped us. It's keeping all the cars from starting, and when I tried to run out, no matter how far I went, I always seemed to be the same distance from the gate."

Tara felt the beginnings of fear constrict her chest.

"That's some serious spatial manipulation magic, this thing is really powerful."

"And yet it hasn't gotten around to just smiting us, so it's influence must still be limited in scope."

"Whatever it is, it's probably still manifesting," Tara said.

"Well, if it does," Dawn said, trying to steel the quaver in her voice, "Clark'll bop it, right?"

"Maybe," Clark said, biting his bottom lip briefly. "But we have no idea what this thing is, other than strong. No idea about abilities or weaknesses…and also, there' the timing. It kills this man right after he agrees to give us information on the new apocalypse…"

"You think they're related?" Tara asked. "Like, maybe Taraka found out about our meeting and one of his lieutenants came here and killed Mr. Castellanos."

"Or Taraka itself," Clark speculated. Both women stared at him.

"Call Buffy," Dawn almost shouted.

Tara's phone flipped open and she quickly pulled up Willow's number.

After a moments silence, she looked at the others.

"No signal…"

"That figures," Clark said.

"Now what?" Dawn asked.

Tara took a deep breath to steady herself.

_Okay, stay calm. Think, what would the Scoobies do?_

"We stick to the plan," she said, "we've still got the protection spell, and it should stop anything short of Taraka itself. We keep searching the books to see if we can find anything."

_Since we can't escape anymore,_ she thought, but kept to herself.

"Too bad Clark can't speed through the books," Dawn grumbled.

"Yeah," Clark agreed, "they'd never survive that. I'd use X-ray vision, but-"

"-blocked in the house," Dawn groaned.

"Outside on the grounds too, I checked."

"Old fashioned way, then."

Clark nodded.

"You guys get started, I need to…think some things through."

Dawn and Tara let his vagary slide as Clark moved to sit in the blood covered chair by the desk. They'd known Clark long enough to know that while the workings of his alien mind were often strange even to him, there were Mensa chapters with less collective intelligence.

As the two women read, Clark sat, and observed, and thought. He let everything flow through him, sitting there at the desk where Castellanos would have sat, he looked at the books. Occasionally he would get up and look inside one, then he would go and sit back down.

"Writing callouses on the right hand," Clark suddenly said an unknown amount of time later. Dawn and Tara looked up, startled by the sudden break in silence.

"He was right handed," Clark was staring into empty space as he spoke. "And he valued knowledge, but in a utilitarian way. He valued knowledge that he could use to gain power. The books…the ones closest to the desk are the most powerful, the most dangerous…so the book he valued most would be-"

Clark suddenly thumped the bloody desk and smirked. He reached under the desk, fingers searching briefly. With the pop of springs, a hidden compartment slid out of the desk. Tara and Dawn both leapt up and walked over to the desk as Clark held out a leather bound book in triumph.

"What is it?" Dawn asked.

"It's his diary," Clark said as he flipped through it.

"Start from the end," Tara suggested.

Clark nodded in agreement and turned to the last page with text. From there he read backwards at a rate of a page every two seconds. He may not be able to unleash his full speed on fragile things like books, but he still had a mind faster than any super computer on earth.

"So…good news or bad news?" Clark asked.

"Bad news," Dawn and Tara said in unison.

"Well, it _is_ the Dread Beast Traka the Terrible…also he summoned it, and he's been sacrificing people to it periodically for the past twelve years…and actually Tara was supposed to be number thirteen."

"…oh," Tara said.

"Well," Dawn said, scowling, "suddenly feeling much better about his death."

"I'm not sure what happened exactly," Clark said. "His notes end with him talking about getting ready for the final sacrifice today."

"Something must have gone wrong," Tara said, "maybe his date was off and the sacrifice was due sooner than he thought, leaving Taraka open to take _his_ life instead."

"The good news," Clark continued, "is that it mentions which book he used and the requisite banishing spell."

"That's good," Tara admitted, "but to do it, we'd need to know exactly where he started summoning Taraka."

Dawn grimaced.

"So, we're still nowhere." She stamped in frustration while Clark tapped the desk in thought.

"Maybe not," he said. "I have a thought, more of a shot in the dark really…"

They located the needed book and followed Clark through the house, Dawn noting the black marks where the friction of his feet had scorched the carpet.

"This is why you don't use super speed in the house," she joked in the tone of an owner admonishing a disobedient dog.

They made their way to the sitting room where Clark showed them the strange brick. A bit of wiggling and the brick came free to reveal a small lever.

"Well," Dawn said, "only one thing to do with a lever. Lev away, Clark."

Clark pulled the lever and they all head a sound like a door snapping open. Clark turned at the sound, crossed the room, and moved a sturdy chair aside, revealing a rectangular trap door, stone stairs leading down into the darkness.

Dawn rolled her eyes.

" _Of course._ Maybe this guys should have spent less time watching old horror movies and more time learning how to summon demons safely…except not, because then he might have summoned Taraka properly…you guys know what I mean."

Prepared as they were ever going to be, the trio descended the stairs, Clark lighting the torches on the wall as they went down.

" _Torches?"_ Dawn groaned. "My _god_ this guy's a cad…and I can speak ill of the dead now since he was planning to kill Tara and all."

They reached the end of the spiraling staircase, an expansive stone room, the center of which was an intricately carved diagram surrounded by candles. In the confines of the diagram was a billowing blue smoke that seemed without a source.

" _So, humans,"_ a voice so heavy they felt it like a wave of physical pressure spoke to their minds, _"you have come before me, the Dreaded Taraka! Kneel and prostrate yourselves before-…what in the sixty-six hells of Atlakat is that thing?"_

They could feel its concentration direct itself to Clark.

"Um," Clark said, "I'm kind of a tourist."

" _Hmm…humans and other! Fall to the ground and worship the apex of might that is the Great Beast Taraka, the Annihilator, the Great Sea that Drowns the World, the-"_

As Taraka listed its many and terrible titles, Tara nudged Clark with her foot, subtly motioning to another empty circle on the floor. The protective circle to house the magician. If they could make it there, Taraka couldn't attack them directly.

Clark wrapped his arms around both women and pulled them close. Without needing to be told, they both braced themselves for sudden acceleration. Clark leapt, and in one motion brought them into the protective circle.

Taraka abruptly stopped its rant as they flew through the air and landed.

" _Balls…"_ it said.

Tara and Dawn whipped open the book and began to chant the spell of banishment.

" _Die, foolish witches,"_ Taraka yelled. It could not attack them directly while they were in the circle, nor could it destroy the circle yet, but it wasn't without options. Blocks of stone were pulled from the walls and the floor and sent flying at Dawn and Tara like cannonballs.

But each block was shattered to dust with a thunderous punch from Clark.

The flames from the torches all leapt into the air, gathering into a powerful stream of fire. Clark breathed deep and exhaled with the force of a hurricane, blasting the pillar of fire out of existence.

The attacks slowed as Taraka diverted its attention to further eroding the diagram that held it captive. Tara and Dawn started chanting faster. Clark kept alert, countering other projectiles as they came.

Suddenly there was the sound of something snapping, and Clark heard the wind outside the house grow powerful as a massive storm sprang into existence outdoors.

" _Fools!"_ Taraka yelled as the last of the confining grid was swept away by its power. _"I am free at last, and nothing shall stop me from destroying your world with my unlimited power!"_

"Bull _crap,_ " Dawn said, voice struggling against a gale wind that was blowing in the small room.

" _What say you, little insect?"_ Taraka demanded as the ground started to quake.

"You are _so_ not all powerful," Dawn taunted, "You're a big poofy smoke creature."

" _Impudent monkey! This form is of my own choosing, now that I will manifest in this plane, I can take any form I desire."_

"Can not!" Dawn countered.

" _Can too!"_ The Destroyer of Worlds, Taraka rebutted as the Pacific Ocean slowly started to boil.

"I bet you can't turn into one of those beetles…the ones with the big pinchy things."

" _A Stag Beetle."_

"Yeah, I _know_ you can't turn into one of tho-"

There was a burst of light and the plume of blue smoke vanished to reveal a stag beetle, glistening and obsidian in the middle of the floor.

" _Now, mortal, you see there are no limits to the power of Tarak-"_

Clark's foot came down like an artillery shell, crushing the stones and sending up a spray of debris as the body of Taraka the Invincible was pulped.

The winds and quakes and boiling seas stopped for a long moment. Then the air became hazy, blue smoke slowly coiling and coalescing around the room, faster and faster until it gathered into a cloud once again.

" _Idiot creatures! You cannot possibly think that something like that could destroy the Devouring Conqueror Tarak-"_

Dawn and Tara, who had resumed chanting as soon as Clark squashed the beetle form of Evisceration King Taraka, suddenly snapped their book closed.

"And with the ending of this spell," they both recited, "we banish you from this plane! Taraka! Taraka! Taraka!"

There was another vortex of wind and Taraka the Smasher of Many Things screamed in rage before vanishing with a _pop._

The three stood in silence for a long moment.

"So…" Clark began, "is that it? Did we just stop the-… _an_ apocalypse?"

Everyone looked at Tara, who just shrugged and drew a few ragged breaths.

"Uh…I…I t-think so."

Dawn started laughing.

"Buffy's gonna be so _pissed_ when she finds out she went to England and saw the Watcher's Council for _no reason!_ "

"Well," Clark said, shrugging, "we might as well go upstairs and wait for Anya. The fridge has an impressive selection of sandwich ingredients."

"Oh good," Tara said, following Clark as he headed for the stairs. "I'm so hungry. I'd forgotten in all the impending doom."

"Apoc' averted in record time," Dawn said, grinning from ear to ear, and Clark knew this story was going to be coming up again and again for the next few months. "Not bad for the B Team."

Now that the paleness of terror was gone, even Tara seemed to be glowing with satisfaction.

"So, if the others are the A Team," Dawn said thoughtfully, "is Buffy, Hannibal?"

"Buffy?" Clark said, frowning, as they climbed back up into the light. "No way. That's Giles…right?"


	6. Mother

"So…I went to see a doctor the other day."

Martha Kent looked up from the papers she was reviewing and saw her friend Joyce Summers staring rather pensively out of her kitchen window. Martha felt a constricting apprehension in her chest.

"Was there a complication from the surgery?"

Joyce turned abruptly to face her, frowning in confusion?

"What?"

Confusion morphed into mortification and she smacked herself in the head.

"Oh my gosh, no. I'm so sorry."

Martha released the breath she had been holding prisoner and tried to settle her nerves.

"Thank god. So why were you seeing a doctor?" Martha asked.

Joyce opened her mouth to answer but stalled out, her gaze dropping, unable to meet Martha's eyes. They had known each other long enough that Martha could discern the different flavors of Joyce's silence pretty well. This one seemed rather embarrassed.

"Joyce," she prodded.

"Okay, he wasn't so much a _doctor_ doctor…he was more of a plastic surgeon."

Martha raised an eyebrow.

"Really now?"

"Oh," Joyce buried her face in her hands, "you must think I'm being so silly."

Martha chuckled, but it was warm and good natured. Joyce looked up at her again.

"What did you see him about?" Martha asked.

"I wanted to see if he could do anything about these lines on my face," Joyce sighed, hand unconsciously reaching up to the lightly crinkled edges of her eyes. "You think I'm being silly, don't you?"

Martha sat her pencil down next to her papers so she could give her friend the full weight of her attention.

"No, not at all," Martha said. "If you take it seriously, I take it seriously. But, Joyce, you're one of the most beautiful people I know. What brought this on?"

Joyce looked back out the window into the fading evening light.

"I don't know…it just seems like, everywhere I look, all I see is stuff like-" Joyce searched the kitchen tabletop, picking up a magazine one of her daughters had left flopped haphazardly on its face.

"-things like this," Joyce continued, turning the magazine onto its cover and pushing it over to Martha.

Martha looked at the picture of the gorgeous young actress whose name escaped her, posed near the bold and colorful titles of articles.

' _21 secrets to amazing sex'…boy I hope this magazine isn't Dawn's,_ Martha thought but she kept the thought to herself. No need to terrorize her troubled friend.

"Are you going to go through with it?" Martha asked.

Joyce shrugged and they lapsed into thoughtful silence.

"Well," Martha said, "whatever you choose to do, I'll support you, but Joyce how you look isn't who you are."

"I know," Joyce said. _And yet…_

"Besides," Martha said, a smirk forming on her face, "you're still beautiful. If you're in denial, we can always ask Brian."

Joyce was again silent, but Martha knew this flavor as _'I'm pretending I have no idea what you're talking about'._

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Joyce said, trying too hard to look honestly befuddled.

"Joyce, please. That man finds any flimsy excuse to come and see you." Martha's voice dropped a few octaves as she said, "' _Oh, Mrs. Summers, I heard something interesting about those antique cameos you ordered…'"_

Joyce chuckled and felt herself turn a shade pinker.

"If you don't ask him out," Martha said, "he will inevitably ask _you_ out, so you'd better know what you're going to say."

"I have no idea," Joyce groaned. "All my dates since the divorce have been a _disaster."_

"- _Robot Ted,_ " Martha whispered, making her friend groan again.

"I invited _Count Dracula_ over for coffee," Joyce said, shaking her head in self-flagellation. "A part of me wonders why I even bother. I mean, I have two kids, I was married for years, I don't think I'll ever get married again, I honestly don't want to…it's hard for Buffy and Dawn, whenever I date someone. They try, but I can tell it's hard for them, to think of me with someone else. I wonder sometimes if they still hope Hank and I will get back together."

"Did you talk to them about it?" Martha asked.

Joyce gave her a depreciating little smile.

"No," she said, quietly, "I don't know if I want to know…I think they'd be more comfortable if I stopped dating all together, but…I just get lonely, I guess. Do you ever-"

Joyce felt like smacking herself in the runaway mouth as she saw the hurt flicker over her friend's face.

"Martha, I am _so_ sorry. I just can't say anything right today."

Martha gave her a warm smile, but Joyce could see the hidden strain.

"It's okay," Martha reassured her, seeking to banish the ghost of Johnathan Kent from the table.

"Can we blame this new medication of mine?" Joyce pleaded lightly.

"Sure," Martha said and they both chuckled. Martha pushed her little stack of papers across the table to Joyce.

"Anyway," she said, "these are all fine."

Joyce grinned gleefully.

" _Thank you,_ Martha! You're a life saver."

"Well, that business degree makes itself useful from time to time."

Joyce shook her head in astonishment.

"If you had told yourself then that you were going to wind up a Farmer's wife, would you have believed it?"

Martha smiled with nostalgia.

"I don't know; it might not have been so hard for me to believe as you might think. I went to school to get an education, but I don't think I ever really wanted to be a career woman. My ambition was always to have a family."

Joyce chuckled as she remembered her own halcyon college days.

"I wish I could say the same. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to have kids."

Martha smiled and shrugged.

"I don't know. I feel like now this next generation feels like they need to make up for thousands of years of being told women could only be housewives, so they think housewives are the only thing they can never, ever be under any circumstances. As far as I'm concerned, the whole point was that, whether you wanted to be a career woman, a stay at home mom, or try and split the difference, no one should be allowed to give you crap about it."

Joyce waved a dismissive hand.

"Yeah, but isn't it fine? Let them have their anger, they're young. It'll give them the energy to change the world."

"' _A leader can change the world,'"_ Martha quoted, " _'but only the people can change it forever'._ "

"Who said that?"

"Oh, I don't know, Clark told me it was some Kryptonian philosopher Jor-El keeps quoting to him."

Joyce shook her head.

"There are too many evil robot men in our lives."

"Amen to that."

They fell back into a comfortable silence as the sun sank under the horizon.

"I'm not going to do it," Joyce said suddenly.

Martha looked up from the magazine she'd been paging through.

"The surgeon?"

Joyce nodded.

"What made up your mind?"

"Well, I guess I just thought about…if Buffy or Dawn were ever in this situation, I'd want them to be happy with themselves the way they were."

"Lead by example."

"Something like that."

"Hm, that's how it goes. The decisions we make, even the ones about ourselves, become about our children."

"I guess that's motherhood."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Mother's day!


	7. Psychopomp

_**Psychopomps are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply to provide safe passage.** _

* * *

There was water steadily dripping from stalactites in the darkness of the cave. Each a steady metronomic beat by itself, altogether they formed a natural percussion ensemble.

Clark Kent added his ragged wheezing to the composition. The pain reminded him, on the off chance he'd forgotten, that a few things were broken. Most of them ribs.

_How long have we been here?_ Clark wondered. Without the sun to tell time, he had lost track. A few weeks at least. A few weeks away from the sun and already his healing was at a fraction of its normal efficiency.

But he didn't need to last forever, just long enough.

Clark was leaning against one of the few intact stalagmites left in the expansive cavern, itself connected to a vast network of caves. He had no idea how vast, possibly infinite. Other dimensions were like that sometimes.

There was a change in the flow of air, his cellmate's breathing, she was waking up. Clark could see her, even in the total darkness, though not as a person sees.

Three cheers for thermal radiation.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked, laying on the floor, staring at the cavern roof. "Do you hate me that much?"

Clark counted to three and dragged himself to his feet, shuffling his way over to her.

_Be ready for sudden violence._

"No," Clark said, kneeling by her side. "I don't hate you at all."

She snorted and turned her head to sneer at him, it seemed to take a considerable effort, but Clark felt it was pretty in character for Glory to spend the last moments of her life on spite.

"No? Even after I killed all those poor, innocent people, and almost murdered all your friends." Her voice was harsh and mocking.

"No," Clark stated, "I still don't hate you."

She laughed, a hollow echo ran through the cavern.

"And why's that?"

Clark shrugged.

"I guess I didn't really see the point; those things are all just a part of who you are. There was no reason to hate you for being who you are."

"Then let me go," her voice was low and pleading now.

"I'm sorry," Clark whispered and she turned away from him with an anguished expression. "I don't hate you, but I'm still going to stop you."

She went silent for a while, and then she attacked. Clark was ready, and the fight was shorter than the last one. Clark may have been getting weaker, but so was she. When she was drained, she turned back into Ben, her human alter ego.

"I think we're almost there," Ben said.

Clark thought so too. The time between each transformation was getting longer, and the time Glory could maintain her form was getting shorter.

Soon she would be subsumed by Ben entirely. But who knew how long that would take. Still, Clark had known what he was signing up for, baiting her and trapping them both in this other dimension, where time ran like a river rapid.

He could just picture the Scoobies outside the door, standing around, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst, making jokes, laughing on purpose at the darkness.

How much time had passed for them? A minute? A second?

Days passed, or weeks, maybe more. Who could tell. The sound of water dropping was going to make Clark as crazy as Glory, he thought.

She would wake up from time to time. Long enough for a scuffle, followed by some inventive threats and promises of what she would do to everyone Clark cared about when she escaped.

"Why are you doing this," she asked, "are you punishing me?"

"No," Clark said, "I'm not doing this to punish you. There'd be no point in _that_ either. If punishment won't change your behavior, then it's just vengeance, and I'm not into that."

"Then, why…"

"I can't let you go back home, Glory. Once you're back to full god status, I wouldn't be able to fight you. I can barely take you as you are now. Not to mention, you'd kill Dawn, and who knows how many thousands of others just opening the door."

"So?" She shrieked, "who cares about them? They're just humans, kid."

Clark nodded.

"Yeah, I guess they are."

Ben would talk about all the things he would do when she was finally gone. He wanted his life back, he'd beg for his job if he needed to.

Clark suggested he maybe move far away from Buffy and Co. Like, _Malaysia_ far. Glory the Crazy Hellgod may have tried to destroy the world, but Ben the Human had called the demon that had nearly killed Joyce Summers, and _had_ killed one other man.

Ben coughed nervously and said that there were plenty of third world countries in need of trained medical professionals.

Glory had stopped wasting her energy on combat for the small amounts of time she could come up for air. She barely had the energy for threats. She just lay there. Sometimes she would babble insanely. She hadn't had a brain in forever, but there were still bursts of lucidity.

"It's not right," she said, either speaking to Clark, or to herself, or to no one. "I shouldn't have to die for them. Do you know what I am, kid? I am a god. I am a pure, primordial fury, magic made life. I think in hurricanes and speak in the nova of stars. And you want me to die to protect humans? To protect their gray little block cities, and their deaf-dumb mudfish art, and their sand grain knowledge, thinking they're all that 'cause they smashed at atoms with their dumb ape hammers until they cracked one open and sucked all the juice out, I mean come on! They can't even figure out how gravity fits with the other three!"

She chocked on a sob and slammed her fist into the ground, cracking the stone of the cavern floor.

"It's _obvious_ to me, kid. I can see it, I can hear it, the truth of it caressing me. I feel the turn of the planets in my gut. I am huge, kid, huge, and powerful, and magnificent and these _insects_ can't compare! If I go…if I die, the universe will be _lesser_ for it!

She tried to lunge at him, but Clark slammed her back down. She flailed against him, but her strength was gone, withered away to almost nothing. She was an empty husk of what she had been.

She lay back on the ground, cracked from the impact, and Clark pretended not to notice when she began to silently weep.

It was another month or so before she could speak again.

"Worshipers, I used to have worshipers. Or maybe they were snacks, I can't remember."

She rolled onto her side to get a better look at Clark sitting next to her. She hadn't been able to stand for days.

"You think I'm evil when I kill a bunch of people. But when a hurricane does it, you call it 'an act of God'. Who's acting? I _am_ a God."

"No one's disputing that," Clark replied.

"Do you think I'm beautiful?"

This was not a new question, but Clark wasn't sure if she was forgetting his answers.

"Yes. Like a wildfire is beautiful…to anyone whose home isn't in the way of the blaze."

Water was plentiful, but the only thing to eat were these little blind fish. A few minutes under heat vision and they were passable, but there was only so much you could do without any seasoning.

Ben never thought he would physically crave a cheeseburger with the force of a heroin addict. That was going to be the first thing he did, he declared. He had another declaration to that effect every few hours.

Looking at her now made Clark think of ancient ruins, the withered remains of towering monoliths and proud cities, all worn to nubs by the sand, the wind, the rain, the unstoppable wheels of time.

"I'll always be afraid of you," he suddenly told her once. "You almost destroyed the world, and you caused a lot of pain to my friends. For the rest of my life, I'm sure I'll find you in a nightmare from time to time. Whatever I do from now on, every decision I make, the fear that you brought me will always be a part of it."

She laughed, the only genuine laugh he'd ever heard from her.

Days, Weeks, Months, years were a possibility. Clark had stopped counting.

"They're all dead," she said, the first words she'd managed in a long time. "Box of coffins, the whole planet."

She turned to look at him again.

"You know, right? If it's not some apocalypse, they'll do it themselves. Eating and eating till there's nothing left but them. And then they'll just eat themselves. You're killing me to save them, but they're dead anyway. I'd give 'em another hundred years…five tops."

"Maybe," Clark admitted. "Actually, you're probably right…"

"So why do you _bother?"_

Her shrieking was the most energy Clark had seen her muster in forever.

Clark shrugged in the darkness.

"Is something only important if it lasts forever?"

Her laugh was the familiar scornful one.

"Ask yourself that again in a thousand years."

They lapsed into silence again.

"What will you do," she asked, "when they all die."

" _If_ they all die," Clark said, "I guess I'll do with them what I'll do with you. Keep them with me, in my memories."

She snorted.

"You're gonna carry the whole race rattling around in your head along with all your enemies? Sounds heavy."

"Well, I'm pretty strong."

Not long after that, they felt the end come. She lay on the cold floor, trembling. She had been too weak to escape for a while, but Clark had stayed. Someone should be there to witness a God leaving the world.

"I don't want to die," she pleaded, "I don't want to end. There's so much…please, you're a hero aren't you? _Save me!_ "

Clark held her hand.

"Everything has its time," he said. "The sun still has to set, even on the best day in the world, even on the worst day."

"But _you_ can't," she said, voice fast and ferocious, "Those humans and those demons are all going to die eventually and you'll be the last thing that remembers me, so you need to go on. If I can only remain in existence in your memories, then _you_ need to last forever."

"Nothing lasts forever," Clark said, "but I'll go as far as I can."

Clark Kent sat at her side as a God died, and all that was left behind was a man.


End file.
